It’s a powerful moment, when you discover a vocabulary exists for something you’d thought incommunicably unique. Personally, I felt it reading Joseph Conrad’s “Lord Jim.” I have friends who’ve found themselves described in everything from...
We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and...
Those who make compassion an essential part of their lives find the joy of life. Kindness deepens the spirit and produces rewards that cannot be completely explained in words. It is an experience more powerful than words. To become acquainted with ki...
No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever th...
But too often men react to women in positions of power with misogyny, often in sexualized terms. I have heard men in such situations talk about how "I'd like to fuck that bitch and teach her a lesson," for example. That kind of reaction demonstrates ...
The generality of mankind is lazy. What distinguishes men of genuine achievement from the rest of us is not so much their intellectual powers and aptitudes as their curiosity, their energy, their fullest use of their potentialities. Nobody really kno...
Never give up on your aspirations. Sometimes life is funny and can get in the way with simple distractions, but don't let that stop you. If you have a dream, then go for it. You have the power to make it manifest itself into something fantastic, so m...
...it occurred to me that maybe Samson's hair wasn't the source of his strength; maybe it was the symbol of his strength. And maybe when Delilah cut off his hair, he didn't lose his power because he lost his hair; he just woke up the next morning and...
This is the paradox of public space: even if everyone knows an unpleasant fact, saying it in public changes everything. One of the first measures taken by the new Bolshevik government in 1918 was to make public the entire corpus of tsarist secret dip...
As it happens, Chicago is the nation's leader in municipal privatization efforts. That's right: The city that conservatives portray as the citadel of the power-grabbing, government-growing left has been selling itself off in pieces for years. It sign...
I have minor characters who are Asian-American, and I've been using them throughout my career, but they've never taken center stage, they've never been really powerful, they've never expressed some of the experiences I had growing up in the U.S. John...
I do not think anyone can read the letters which passed between Clarke and [Anthony] Collins without admitting that Collins, who writes with wonderful Power and closeness of reasoning, has by far the best of the argument, so far as the possible mater...
I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. T...
I’m a MAMA! I’ve got REACTIONS & REFLEXES faster than any speeding bullet! HUGS & KISSES more POWERFUL than any drug! EYES in the back of my head! The amazing ABILITY to find stuff out to protect what I LOVE!And the STRENGTH to carry the weight o...
Dawn's Spawn: Cause and Effect Criticizing the next generation reflects on us. We hold the power to carve out good citizens who will take over the planet and wrest control from us. Step up with your hammer and chisel to create a defined character. Gi...
There is no such thing as luck. Only chance. The chance that something good might happen. The chance that something bad might happen. It is our decision to choose how we will react, respond & resurrect from each life encounter! Every situation is but...
I am about tribal feminine power. As a leader, I may stumble but my essence lives to the future-- of my people, of my literature, of my art. And when a tribesman turn against its leader, that tribe will become two. It may faulter my course, but it wi...
I want to listen to accomplished women scarred by sexism that still walk in elegance and kindness; hear powerful men that have a heart to serve. I want to talk to the brokenhearted that still believe in love; I want to listen to people that laugh eve...
Choice is the keynote of self-determinism. To determine anything, you must have the choice to determine. Choice to determine means that you must have the power of decision. Decision and time have a lot in common. When we have clean, clear decision, w...
I saw a woman who physically and spiritually blocked out the definition of being celestial, and replaced it with her own divine beauty. She was transcendent. She was beyond astonishing in her presence. But what she truly did, which was beyond the sco...
Be an unstoppable force. Write with an imaginary machete strapped to your thigh. This is not wishy-washy, polite, drinking-tea-with-your-pinkie-sticking-out stuff. It's who you want to be, your most powerful self. Write your books. Finish them, then ...
